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Great Sexpectations

this entry is for anna, who so desperately loves these xanga updates…

after a long conversation about an otherwise taboo topic with a friend of the opposite sex (let’s call him adam), i began to think about our situation in society. we touched upon several ideas, going back and forth, until finally, i decided to take a leaf out of carrie bradshaw’s book and ask a pertinent, but often difficult question: are we sluts?

first, i think we have to define what a “slut” is. dictionary.com defines it as “1. a woman who is sexually promiscuous, 2. a woman prostitute, or 3. a slovenly woman; a slattern.” on the streets, we define it several ways: a girl who is sexually promiscuous (including but not limited to intercourse, oral sex, and other kinky variations of sexual pleasure), a girl who flirts overly and openly, or a girl we don’t like.

first, since i mentioned carrie bradshaw, “sex and the city” is a perfect example. if you have been living under a rock for the past seven years, it’s about a sex columnist and her three best girl friends who live in new york city, and it chronicles their ups and downs as women, lovers, professionals, and friends. the images it portrays is are a bit confusing, however. carrie cheats on aiden with big, and is upset when aiden doesn’t want to have sex in the first week; samantha sleeps with anything that has a penis, miranda makes a list in one episode and it totals 37; and charlotte, even though she gets married, has experiences with several men before trey. and the ladies of this show are hot, sexy, glamorous, and wonderful, but what image are they portraying? don’t get me wrong, i love this show. i watch it religiously, and i completely agree with many things on it. but one thing puzzles me: is it supposed to be liberating women, opening them up to sexual freedom? or does it justify having sex with the cute guy down the hall…and the guy from the restaurant…and the guy from the laundromat…

this brings me to my next question: what is the cutoff for being labeled “slut?” miranda has had 37 people, someone i know personally has had over 40…and some girls are called sluts if it’s more than two. so where is it? three? six? fifteen? and where is the line for “sexual promiscuity?” is it with making out? wandering hands? some form of sex? girls who are affectionate and flirtatious and receive ample attention from the male gender are also called sluts. i was called a slut for hugging and kissing a group of friends hello…but they were only friends…and i’m italian, for crying out loud!

let’s now attack the third street definition. a girl we don’t like. some girls are called a slut by many people they go to and goes to school with. not because they’ve had slept with many people, but because a) they are promiscuous in other ways, and b) they are obsessed with themselves, so it makes them seem confident and attract a steady amount attention from guys (whether or not it’s the right type of attention). so for reason “b” alone, other girls don’t like them. and reason “a” fuels the justification of them being sluts. those girls are probably subjected to names like “slutbag,” “slutface,” and the like. however, whether or not they actually ARE sluts doesn’t matter as much as the fact that a) they put out that impression, and b) other girls don’t like them.

going back to my conversations with “adam,” my slutty-ness is defined by him as hooking up (no sex) with an undisclosed number of gentlemen during my freshman year of college, even though his deeds far outweigh mine on the slut spectrum. so why is it ok for “adam” to have those on his list as accomplishments, while mine seem to be something i have to hide. further, why do men believe that women lie about the number of men they’ve slept with, by the rule of three? it’s not a secret; if i’m ever asked, i will say, “i have had sex with x people,” not “i have had sex with 3x^5-4+(15x+3) people.” it’s sex, not calculus, people. i don’t want my future lovers to be the result of an algebraic equation. if i lie, people don’t believe me. if i tell the truth, i’m automatically a slut, even though there are girls with a much larger undisclosed number of gentlemen, with a larger range of deeds (including ones that have not made it on my list), and yet they are “such nice girls.”

i guess being a slut is something that i just don’t understand. fighting the stereoptye and judgements are things that we all have to do, but i don’t think we should fight if we don’t know the reasons behind it. it looks like we’re doomed to be labeled as sluts no matter what we do…or don’t do, for that matter…it’s an uphill battle, but as long as we’re going to be labeled, we might as well have some fun with it and kiss some frogs, no?

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One comment

Girls are always stuck with the short end of the double standard stick. Guys are labeled “pimps” or “playas that know the game” while girls are labeled “sluts” “whores” and “been around”. And while I’m always trying to figure out the reasons why and how, I never get my answer and I always come ot the same conclusion…it sucks and that way of thinking is dumb!! -.- hehe. random props,nice page and that was my 2 cents^^